I have been thinking a lot about the characterization of ‘collapse’ of Cahokia from Graeber and Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”. They see it as more of a willful abandonment than a helpless collapse. It makes me wonder how we can abandon the current structures of belief and practice collectively.
—- McAnany and Yoffee disagree, responding that while “living through some kinds of change is difficult, painful, or even catastrophic, … resilience is a more accurate term [than collapse] to describe the human response to extreme problems.”
Interestingly enough I was just reading about Cahokia. There is a lot of discussion and disagreement about their fate. A piece I read from an archaeological journal recently suggested they weren’t facing serious environmental degradation or food issues… but rather factionalism. It may have been their heterogeneity that ended whatever polity they had established. And I think that is why they simply dispersed. Of course they had the ability to do so. Not a luxury today, nor probably with other civilizations. But to your point, we can also characterize a collapse as a transformation. The Soviet Union’s collapse was essentially a dramatic reorganization of society.
One view of Cahokia is that it was voluntarily abandoned. People simply walked away. They understood that centralized society was not a desirable mode.
I realize there is no where we can collectively disperse to. I just embarrassed myself spectacularly trying to articulate this to someone who had decided on escape for themselves.
What if we could move to epistemic land of equally 'Strongly Held Values' that created positively reinforced cycles of sustainably. What would that look like, what stories would we share?
Great questions. I’ve been working on a ‘social emergence’ theory as an alternative. The basic idea is to create change at the ‘cellular’ level. Create small groups that focus on resilience. Perhaps these groups emerge as communities. Hopefully these communities network, help each other out.
Nice start to this series. We need broad thinking leadership and vision to escape the fate of collapse, not piece meal policy. Not likely to happen. The insulation of the wealthy either makes them blind to collapse or fully aware and creating it deliberately. Fewer people means extending dwindling resources, and a smaller populace to control. Cynical? Paranoid? I don't think so.
It’s a good question. Here’s a few thoughts I’ve had in trying to assess it. Clearly their power and wealth is derived from and relies on both large amounts of labor and consumption. And as it seems today, people have never been more controlled. And if history is an indicator, these folks tend to look out for their short-term interests rather than having a long game. That said, every situation is different. History doesn’t exactly predict the future. There may be many reasons to suspect a twist and I’m all ears!
Eight billion people are unwieldy to control. How many peasants do you need to construct your mega yacht? How long would the remaining 1.6 trillion barrels of oil last with a population reduced to a billion or two. How dramatically would that reduction slow climate change? I made a case here for conspiracy. Can I prove it? No. Is there logic to the idea, yes. Since then, AI has sprung up, another way of replacing us in the mind of a megalomaniac. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/circumstantial-evidence
I don't agree with Kissinger that collapse of a civilization indicates its failure (if i've read that right.) That's analagous to suggesting that a person's life is a failure because they eventually died. Our own civilization, gone global now, is in ever steepening decline at this point with full-on collapse is simply a matter of when now (although i'm not sure you'd know until later when you tipped over the edge into collapse from decline, given how it plays out in real time.) Yet our successes have been spectacular. One could very much say we are today the victim of those successes.
I suppose defining success would be in the eye of the beholder. For example horrible efforts can be classified as successful. Hitler or Stalin were successful in the horrible endeavors they pursued. Doesn't mean they were good. So it's hard to call success and failure objective measures unless the measurements are defined. From an ecological perspective, most civilizations have been a complete failure. Our present civilization is the worst on that front. And in the end, that's not good for human well-being. Interesting, thought-provoking comment. Thanks.
Very good points. I was thinking when i wrote the comment of the machine-age, the techno-industrial era that is our global civilization today. From the technological standpoint, from the standpoint of making seeming magic come true, of convenience, of minting a vast middle class (and a vast, vast number of large primates period), of creating a billionaire class, of shrinking the world in making insane levels of mobility the reality, etc. etc. etc., we've been a spectacular success, even if shockingly short-lived. From the ecological perspective? We make what Hitler did rank like a minor traffic offense.
I agree. In many senses we have achieved astonishing successes. Of course at a price. I also believe that with some of the successes technology, we’ve been removed from each other and from nature, perhaps having its own psychological and physical health consequences. Are we happier? Big question mark.
I appreciate that you are writing on collapse. It is a topic of interest for me as well. I feel like we should change the name just to make it more palatable to respond to. Fear that leads to denial is one of the major barriers to recognition. There are many head in the sanders.
Have you read the book hospicing modernity? It is a rich and fantastic exploration on the topic.
I haven’t read, but ordering now. I agree fear is a big barrier. Our brains just love delusions. We need a societal cognitive behavioral therapy for sure.
Societal rewire is so critical. The fear was really exposed during the pandemic. I like the comment to change from collapse (which causes humans to collapse) to resilience. We definitely need the behavior sociologists/psychologists on the team.
All I can do is keep practicing and writing on self reflection, brain-rewiring/mindfulness techniques along side the stinging truth.
Im reading it now. It is supposed to break spells but has be under one. Its a powerful book.
It is intense and requires a lot of breaks for writing notes and processing.
We have already gone beyond critical climate tipping points. The current climate is already less favourable for food production and will get much worse over coming decades. Globally, hunger is on the rise.
Wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of those who have the least to lose, the old. It only remains to be seen if the current civilisation goes out with a bang or a whimper.
The "collapse" of the soviet union is a poor example: it didn't collapse, but was murdered by a complex global covert operation helmed by Bill Casey at the CIA.
I have been thinking a lot about the characterization of ‘collapse’ of Cahokia from Graeber and Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”. They see it as more of a willful abandonment than a helpless collapse. It makes me wonder how we can abandon the current structures of belief and practice collectively.
I was reading a dissection of the book and came across this passage. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/720603
—- McAnany and Yoffee disagree, responding that while “living through some kinds of change is difficult, painful, or even catastrophic, … resilience is a more accurate term [than collapse] to describe the human response to extreme problems.”
Interestingly enough I was just reading about Cahokia. There is a lot of discussion and disagreement about their fate. A piece I read from an archaeological journal recently suggested they weren’t facing serious environmental degradation or food issues… but rather factionalism. It may have been their heterogeneity that ended whatever polity they had established. And I think that is why they simply dispersed. Of course they had the ability to do so. Not a luxury today, nor probably with other civilizations. But to your point, we can also characterize a collapse as a transformation. The Soviet Union’s collapse was essentially a dramatic reorganization of society.
One view of Cahokia is that it was voluntarily abandoned. People simply walked away. They understood that centralized society was not a desirable mode.
And as for Graeber and Wengrow see my Substack at https://open.substack.com/pub/peterderrico/p/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history?r=1hp10e&utm_medium=ios
An excellent book.
I realize there is no where we can collectively disperse to. I just embarrassed myself spectacularly trying to articulate this to someone who had decided on escape for themselves.
What if we could move to epistemic land of equally 'Strongly Held Values' that created positively reinforced cycles of sustainably. What would that look like, what stories would we share?
Great questions. I’ve been working on a ‘social emergence’ theory as an alternative. The basic idea is to create change at the ‘cellular’ level. Create small groups that focus on resilience. Perhaps these groups emerge as communities. Hopefully these communities network, help each other out.
I’m in.
Nice start to this series. We need broad thinking leadership and vision to escape the fate of collapse, not piece meal policy. Not likely to happen. The insulation of the wealthy either makes them blind to collapse or fully aware and creating it deliberately. Fewer people means extending dwindling resources, and a smaller populace to control. Cynical? Paranoid? I don't think so.
It’s a good question. Here’s a few thoughts I’ve had in trying to assess it. Clearly their power and wealth is derived from and relies on both large amounts of labor and consumption. And as it seems today, people have never been more controlled. And if history is an indicator, these folks tend to look out for their short-term interests rather than having a long game. That said, every situation is different. History doesn’t exactly predict the future. There may be many reasons to suspect a twist and I’m all ears!
Eight billion people are unwieldy to control. How many peasants do you need to construct your mega yacht? How long would the remaining 1.6 trillion barrels of oil last with a population reduced to a billion or two. How dramatically would that reduction slow climate change? I made a case here for conspiracy. Can I prove it? No. Is there logic to the idea, yes. Since then, AI has sprung up, another way of replacing us in the mind of a megalomaniac. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/circumstantial-evidence
Ah, so mostly the third world populations then? They keep the consumer anglosphere going strong?
I didn't drill down that far, but certainly developing nations are the most endangered.
I don't agree with Kissinger that collapse of a civilization indicates its failure (if i've read that right.) That's analagous to suggesting that a person's life is a failure because they eventually died. Our own civilization, gone global now, is in ever steepening decline at this point with full-on collapse is simply a matter of when now (although i'm not sure you'd know until later when you tipped over the edge into collapse from decline, given how it plays out in real time.) Yet our successes have been spectacular. One could very much say we are today the victim of those successes.
I suppose defining success would be in the eye of the beholder. For example horrible efforts can be classified as successful. Hitler or Stalin were successful in the horrible endeavors they pursued. Doesn't mean they were good. So it's hard to call success and failure objective measures unless the measurements are defined. From an ecological perspective, most civilizations have been a complete failure. Our present civilization is the worst on that front. And in the end, that's not good for human well-being. Interesting, thought-provoking comment. Thanks.
Very good points. I was thinking when i wrote the comment of the machine-age, the techno-industrial era that is our global civilization today. From the technological standpoint, from the standpoint of making seeming magic come true, of convenience, of minting a vast middle class (and a vast, vast number of large primates period), of creating a billionaire class, of shrinking the world in making insane levels of mobility the reality, etc. etc. etc., we've been a spectacular success, even if shockingly short-lived. From the ecological perspective? We make what Hitler did rank like a minor traffic offense.
I agree. In many senses we have achieved astonishing successes. Of course at a price. I also believe that with some of the successes technology, we’ve been removed from each other and from nature, perhaps having its own psychological and physical health consequences. Are we happier? Big question mark.
Oh i'd say we've never been sicker nor less happy. Nor is my comment subjective. It's science.
Agreed
I appreciate that you are writing on collapse. It is a topic of interest for me as well. I feel like we should change the name just to make it more palatable to respond to. Fear that leads to denial is one of the major barriers to recognition. There are many head in the sanders.
Have you read the book hospicing modernity? It is a rich and fantastic exploration on the topic.
I haven’t read, but ordering now. I agree fear is a big barrier. Our brains just love delusions. We need a societal cognitive behavioral therapy for sure.
Societal rewire is so critical. The fear was really exposed during the pandemic. I like the comment to change from collapse (which causes humans to collapse) to resilience. We definitely need the behavior sociologists/psychologists on the team.
All I can do is keep practicing and writing on self reflection, brain-rewiring/mindfulness techniques along side the stinging truth.
Im reading it now. It is supposed to break spells but has be under one. Its a powerful book.
It is intense and requires a lot of breaks for writing notes and processing.
Glad you are planning on reading.
We have already gone beyond critical climate tipping points. The current climate is already less favourable for food production and will get much worse over coming decades. Globally, hunger is on the rise.
Wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of those who have the least to lose, the old. It only remains to be seen if the current civilisation goes out with a bang or a whimper.
The "collapse" of the soviet union is a poor example: it didn't collapse, but was murdered by a complex global covert operation helmed by Bill Casey at the CIA.
Dmitry Orlov wrote the Five Stages of Collapse. Having survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, he draws on his own experience in this book.
You are confusing cause with collapse. The cause of collapse can be numerous… but the USSR’s collapse still fits the definition of collapse.
ok.
September 3 2024 recapitulating all.our failures.
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939
I am quite keen on living with our First Nation's People if they'll have me